Snoop Dogg Thanksgiving

      Did you hear what Snoop Dogg said when he was given his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?  He said, “I want to thank me for believing in me… for doing all this hard work… I want to thank me for having no days off; I want to thank me for never quitting [and] trying [to do] more rights than wrongs; I want to thank me for just being me at all times.”

      Well, I want to thank Snoop Dogg, too.   He gave me a good belly laugh, and, if my rhetorical analysis doesn’t ruin his humor, he’s helping me launch a light-hearted conversation about the nature of thanksgiving.

     I commend Snoop Dogg for unashamedly talking to himself.  For some reason, people widely associate talking to themselves with mental illness, but in order to have a healthy sense of self, we must have a knowable self to talk to.  The Psalmist talks to himself when he prays, “be still, my soul.”  The words consciousness and conscience, are ancient compound words which involve an inner “knowing together.” There is always an implied “other” in our self-awareness.  To give thanks involves telling ourselves that we have been given gifts-- even if, as Snoop Dogg assumes, it is our mysterious inward other that is giving them to ourselves.

    I commend Snoop Dogg for first thanking his parents, wife, and friends.  These acts of conventional gratitude went unreported, and they give context to his other self-congratulatory remarks.  We should be responsible to our best selves, after all.

     Yet, I want to thank Snoop Dogg for saying out loud what we are tempted to believe but are too timid to say.  We’re easily deluded into thinking our well-being depends on our good decisions.  We forget the ways others have enabled us to make good decisions. Perhaps most of all we forget we can’t make good decisions without that inward other who pervades the whole universe as well as giving life to our consciousness.  Forgetting that other is how Snoop Dogg set the whole concept of thanksgiving on its ear.  

When Distractions Aren't

     The dog in the animated feature, Up, irritates me. He’s constantly being distracted by squirrels.  Yet, yesterday I found myself distracted by what my family now calls “squirrel moments.”

     I asked my wife if she’d seen a magazine I wanted to reference for my next newspaper column. 

    “No,” she smiled.  “But here’s your new Triple-A Card.  Do you have your wallet?”

      I dutifully found my billfold and inserted the card, taking the old card over to the shredder.  But the shredder wouldn’t work because the bin was full.  So, I dumped the shredded paper onto the compost pile.  Returning to the house, I saw the dehumidifier bucket was also full.  So, I dropped the empty shredder bin, pulled out the dehumidifier bucket and emptied it in the kitchen sink, only to find the sink, too, was full of dishes.  So, I did the dishes, returned the dehumidifier bucket, returned the shredder bin, shredded my old card, and resumed looking for my magazine so I could resume work on my article. 

      These interruptions so frustrated me that I just started writing about this fiasco. Initially, I thought this article would be about the importance of staying focused.  Such a theme would certainly make the leadership gurus happy.

       Yet, I finally risked sharing these boring details in order to say this: we should not be so focused on narrow goals that we forget to be present in the moment.  I cannot presume on my wife’s willingness to empty all the bins because I fancy myself too busy to be bothered by my household. 

     Life always interrupts, and if we’re not going to resent most of life, we will have to learn to value what is in front of us.  Jesus once stopped for a sick woman who was among those pressing up against him, preventing him from promptly responding to an emergency call.  He was already late to save the dying child of a synagogue ruler.  (Luke 8:45-50)  Yet, this woman’s intervening need was somehow more than a distraction.  Our most important work is often done when we thought we were busy doing something else.     

Cherishing Jews

        I rarely write to authors who have influenced me.  But one who has written me back is a Jewish author residing in Jerusalem by the name of James Kugel.  In his book entitled, “In the Valley of the Shadow,” he shares his experience with cancer and the way he experienced God through his suffering.

       Nobody in the last 40 years has taught me more about how to understand Jesus’ resurrection than Kugel’s Harvard schoolmate, Jon Levinson, also a Jew.  Since I’m a Christian, this may strike readers as odd unless I explain that Levinson emphasizes a traditional Rabbinic Judaism which believes the God of Israel will be faithful to people by raising their bodies from the dead.  

       I got to meet Levinson once. His is one of only two autographs I have asked for in thirty years.  Levinson shows how seriously Judaism once took the hope of resurrection, and why it was natural that the Jewish Saul of Tarsus (who became known as the Christian Apostle Paul) interpreted his Damascus Road experience as a meeting with a resurrected Jew-- Jesus Christ.

       Of course, when Saul/Paul called Jesus “Christ” he was not using Jesus’ last name.   Christ means the “one anointed” to be King of Israel.  In light of the recent hate-crime in Pittsburg, it’s important for Christians to remind the world that Jesus, too, was a Jew. He was crucified for claiming to be the King of the Jews.  Despite popular notions, the writers of the New Testament did not hate Jews.  They were themselves, from first to last, Jews.  Whatever one might think of predominant forms of politics practiced among some Jewish people, one cannot understand Christianity without understanding that it is the child of Judaism.  

      While early Christians got cross-ways with some Jewish authorities, that’s partly because many Christians felt like they should invite all races of Gentile people into their Jewish synagogues.  Jesus gave his life to “create one, united humanity by breaking down dividing walls of hostility, thus making peace” between Jew and Greek. (Ephesians 2:14)

     Sadly today, such a vision bears repeating.       

Where Rage Leads

      It’s almost never a good idea to try to lead people away from their rage.  This is a hard lesson, because as children we learned that unholy bitterness can be destructive.   So, it’s natural for us to get stressed out in the presence of another’s righteous anger and suffering.  We tend to want to cheer such people up.

      We might even try to explain away their pain.  I’ve heard people tell grieving parents to find God’s “silver lining” in the loss of their children.  This is not just terrible poetry; it’s bad theology.  Nobody truly standing in the darkness that descends over the cross will have the audacity to tell Jesus, “cheer up and live in the sunshine.”  The only songs the suffering Jesus can manage are laments--“My God, why have you forsaken me?”

      Christian faith teaches us to explore our disappointments.  The path to healing and releasing our bitterness is through anger—not around it.  In light of the clergy scandals in the last couple weeks, it’s perhaps timely for me to acknowledge that the victims of sexual violence, whom I know, are relieved that I think they have every right to be enraged.  They’re surprised, I think, because religious types have too often silenced and buried their protest, cut lament out of the Bible, and made worship a perpetually cheery concert led by “praise teams.”

      Yet, if the church maintains a place for God’s anger, then it will be more acceptable for us to explore our own.  We can discover that our anger is righteous because a standard of right has really been violated.   Following our anger to its source, we will find that this Standard of Right must be at least as angry as we are.  This is why it’s actually “right” to be mad at injustice.  For, if the world were purposeless, then our expectations would be meaningless, too.  In such a world we could not expect anything but meaninglessness.   So, if we’re allowed to really mull over our disappointment, we’ll realize it takes a God to validate our anger.       

My Psalm 35

Oh Defender

Say to my soul,

“I Am your salvation.”

Oh King of Justice

May my whole being exclaim

“There is none like Jehovah.”

Oh Vindicator

heal my forlorn soul; ease my mourning.

Arise to defend the innocent; do justice to my gloating accusers…

that I may give thanks in the great assembly--

that I may praise you among the throng.

Oh Defender

amidst all my battles

Say to my soul,

“I Am your salvation.”

Coping with Regrets

       All of us live with some regrets, so as I began researching an upcoming sermon, I scanned the internet for what secular bloggers typically offer people struggling with regret.   

     Some of the advice out there is generally sound, although it sometimes suffers from a tendency to minimize the severity of our most troubling regrets.  “You are only human.  You are entitled to mistakes.  Don’t be so hard on yourself,” bloggers say.   Yet, I doubt the man who has ruined his marriage and hurt his children really believes that his problem is that he’s judging himself too severely.

      There’s also advice out there which seems a bit preachy to me.  There is the blithely simple: “Learn from your mistakes.  Don’t do it again.”  There is the sometimes plausible, “Be thankful you can rectify your mistakes.” Then there is the ever standard, “Learn to forgive yourself, and move on.”

     What all of this self-help fails to grapple with is that our failures, misjudgments and ethical lapses all bring about a very real cost.  Four years ago my wife and I discovered Ross Department stores on the East coast while on vacation, and I told her I wanted to invest over $1,000 in them.  Yet, I simply failed to act.  Ross has since rose 60 points on the NASDAQ. I don’t think I could quit kicking myself for not investing if I didn’t know I have far greater riches still available, riches that are forever insured.

      I also regret coaching my children the way my Dad coached me.  The problem with that, of course, is that I’m not my Dad and my kids are not me.  The kids bear in their souls the cost of that mistake.  I’ve told them I’m sorry. I strive to do better.  But they still bear that cost.  Such costs remain even when we want to forgive ourselves.  Regrets will likely maintain a compulsive hold on us unless we accept that there is one who alone can bear such cost, who forgives us and offers healing and recompense to those we’ve hurt both now and forevermore.      

   

Sacred Space in Exile 1 Peter 2:1-10

      By this time it should be obvious that I read  1 Peter as a sustained reflection on the consequences of the new birth for people who feel like cultural exiles in the world.  This particular reflection calls on the church to remember its baptism as if they were all new Christians, and this section may have originally been an address specifically to new Christians, which was later folded into Peter’s wider masterpiece.    It addresses us as if we have arisen from the baptistery: As new born babes… (2:2)   As you come to him, the living Stone… (2:4) The new birth is like entering a temple—Americans might sense some remote hint of the feeling of awe inspired by the approach and entrance into special revered space if they have walked up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. 

     Critical to my “approach” to these verses is the notion that the new birth brings about an approach or a coming into an experience of the sacred that is likened to the approach of faithful Israel to a sacred stone which marked entrance into the sacred precincts of the temple.  Jesus is a living Stone.  That is to say he is functioning like a sacred stone was critical to Temple entry.      

     This draws heavily on the early church’s understanding of Jesus as the renewed Temple of God.  To be joined with Christ in baptism is to be ushered into this experience of the sacred space.  Of course God in Christ is a living temple—a living Body.  The glory of God resides not in dead stones but in the incarnate body of Jesus who comprises the Temple as Living Stone.  And the very approach into Christ, the living Stone, is one where believers are made into interconnecting stones—we are made into a spiritual house—a spiritual temple—we become living sacred space.  Yes, we are a house in the sense of a household of priests (2:9), but also a holy temple—thus, “living stones,” who collectively house the glory of God’s Spirit.  This dual meaning of house makes the image sometimes hard to follow, but I think we know a collective bunch of people are a ‘household of faith’ and that household always occupies some space.  Thus, where the Body of Christ is we also have a temple—a mysterious space in which the holy may be encountered.  

       All three of the Stone passages Peter cites in these verses are about the approach into sacred space.     

       Isaiah 8:14  is a text where God is himself becomes the appropriate sanctuary for both North Israel and South Judah—he is the one temple presence that the faithful of both divided kingdoms may enter.  He, is the place of refuge.  God is the sanctuary area where there is safety.  Yet, for those who are disobedient attempting to enter into this sacred space is dangerous.  For those, God is not a sacred garden of safety walling out danger—he is rather a discarded stone at the edge of the compound which trips up those defiant and unholy souls who wish to presume on the benefits of the holy.  To the faithless the holiness o God is a fearful and dangerous stumbling stone.

        Isaiah 28:16 looks forward to the re-establishment of the Temple compound which will wipe away evil.  There is a Stone which is the foundation of the Temple’s activity.  The Temple will bring the living water of righteousness to Israel and the nations.  That is good news for those who love righteousness.  Yet, for those who have a covenant with death, the waters of the temple will come as a deluge which washes them away.  

     In Psalm 118:22 we meet the metaphor that we often associate with Palm Sunday when Jesus entered into the temple courts the last week of his life.  There Jesus is being rejected as the entry into the Holy by the leaders of the Temple in his day.  This is similar to Israel’s ancient rejection of God in the quoted Psalm.  The builders of Israel had rejected a certain building stone—the way I might throw away some 2x4’s that I deem crooked.    But God, when he takes over the building project in making the Temple new, selects the very stone the builders rejected and makes it the integrating capstone that makes an entry into the compound possible.   Without the capstone—two sides of an arch would just crumble.  What was rejected is now celebrated as the very entry into the sacred space.  The instrument of entry into the holy, rejected by some—is the one who has ushered us into an experience of the holy. The Jesus the society around the Christians of Asia minor may reject Jesus, but for believers he is the holy threshold into holy space. 

     In all three passages we are reminded that holiness is necessary for entry into and the creation of sacred space.  So it is in light of these verses that I read the initial commands in the first verses of the chapter.  The initial command to take off, lay aside or discard a series of evils, I read as if it were a moral dress-code for priests of holy space.  The concept is a baptismal theme (Gal 3:27).  Malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander all stem from insecurity and a competitive comparative righteousness which exists in the world of favoritism.  These things are discarded as inappropriate attire for people who have received an anointing as priests--who have been born and adopted by an impartial Father, sacrificial Son and imperishable Mystery.    All of these forms of poor dress-code make a community of people and unsafe and unholy place.  Yet, when priests take off unclean attire in holiness they make the temple a sacred place of refuge for all who enter.

     The second image of new birth, alongside a change of clothes, is that of tasting heavenly milk.  Such an image likely arises from places like Isaiah 55:1, 10 where Israel is encouraged to drink milk that costs nothing—by drinking in the word of God that is showered from heaven.  “Tasting” the goodness of the Lord occurs as this kind of positive metaphor only in two other locations in the New Testament.  Once in John 2 where the master of the wedding feast in Cana tastes wine of the Kingdom which Jesus makes from 30 gallon water tanks.  The other is Hebrews 6 where believers are similarly commanded to go beyond their baptism in which they are said to have, “ tasted of the heavenly gift, made partakers of the Holy Ghost,  tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come.”  Newly born priests are, thus, to take their gospel strait up.  Learning to crave undiluted gospel will enable them to grow up into the salvation which is already born in them in embryonic seed form.  Such ritual clothing and diet will produce a community where there is a sacred and safe space.

        This section reaches a crescendo in verse 9: So, we are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God that we may declare the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light.  Thus, our new birth then has caused us to take off unholy clothes—to drink the heavenly milk of the Word, to exhibit the kind of character that makes our space safe for others—a place of refuge.  We minister to the world by mystically entering into the heavenly temple where God creates light out of darkness.  Once we were barred from entry into such holy space.  Once we, like early Christians in a pagan empire, lacked a common adoption or any sense of belonging or covenantal agreement, but then we received the mercy that involves us in the redemption of the world.  But now we are priests who maintain sacred space that declares the wonders of God’s underived and eternal life.  So in addition to a new set of clothes, a new nutritional source of holy food, a new approach into holy,  the new birth also ushers us into a new vocation—one of declaring praise and exhibiting the danger and the safety of Divine Presence in the world.

Here's the link to the full sermon